Fruitman seems to get a lot of love by the fans/media.. but all he really did was help Bryan by trading Marion for Hedo so that he could keep his Mid Level (to be used on Jack).

If he was in anyway responsible for some of the things that went public during Bryan's tenure then I'll be glad if he's no longer making decisions.. When it was leaked that Bryan was interested in Matt Barnes even though it would have been an illegal transaction... or Wilson Chandler, when they had no money.

I'm not sure if that was all on Bryan or if that was Fruitman not doing his homework before the news leaked.. but if Fruitman is being swapped for someone else, that's probably a good thing - at least in my opinion.

I just want to go on record as saying that I really like how the Raptors are retooling their front office....

Our cap specialist worked for 7 years handling complicated cap issues for 30 teams at the NBA office

Our CEO was an enormous player in the LA Sports market and has a fantastic track record

Our GM and Pres is the Executive of the Year

Our director of scouting helped spot gems like Faried and Lawson

and if BC stays he is fantastic at the marketing and business relations end of basketball

and as Tim Chisholm pointed out in a recent article leaving Casey will be a genius move if we get year 1 Casey and coach friendly
if we need to go out and hire a new one after an extensive retooling of the roster.

Fruitman seems to get a lot of love by the fans/media.. but all he really did was help Bryan by trading Marion for Hedo so that he could keep his Mid Level (to be used on Jack).

If he was in anyway responsible for some of the things that went public during Bryan's tenure then I'll be glad if he's no longer making decisions.. When it was leaked that Bryan was interested in Matt Barnes even though it would have been an illegal transaction... or Wilson Chandler, when they had no money.

I'm not sure if that was all on Bryan or if that was Fruitman not doing his homework before the news leaked.. but if Fruitman is being swapped for someone else, that's probably a good thing - at least in my opinion.

Good points.

Maybe he was not consulted? Who knows. But I never thought of those situations in that context with Fruitman.

Here is some background.... Readers Digest version: He is a rockstar of trainers.

Phil Jackson ✔ @PhilJackson11

Conversation about @Lakers plethora of injuries by John Ireland on radio. He hit the part about Alex McKechnie coming to ‘fix’ Shaq in 98'
12:34 AM - 26 Apr 2013

Phil Jackson ✔ @PhilJackson11

Butt, no one asked happened to Alex? He’s with Toronto btw and sorely missed. A guy that can keep players on the floor.
12:37 AM - 26 Apr 2013

Shaquille O’Neal, early in the first quarter of an exhibition game in October, 1997, faked a move, changed direction and drove to the hoop.

A surge of pain shot through his abs. He had strained his lower abdominal muscles, a microscopic tear of the muscle fibres.

It was a recurring problem for the 25-year-old centre, then in his second year with the Los Angeles Lakers, and, at the time, Shaq remembers, it felt like his abs were “ripped in half, hanging together by one little thread.”

The Lakers staff searched for options and came across a Canadian who had successfully treated a similar injury. “This guy in Canada,” Shaq was told, “he can fix you.”

“It was like a solar eclipse,” laughs Alex McKechnie, the “guy in Canada,” as he recalls that January, 1998, day when Mr. O’Neal – all 7 feet, 1 inch, and 325 pounds of him – arrived at his office door in the Vancouver suburbs. The Glasgow native had moved to the West Coast in 1974 and established himself as a go-to physiotherapist for many of Canada’s top athletes.

In the mid-nineties, Mr. McKechnie began to hatch new techniques for his practice. He believed the answer to the abdominal-injury riddle lay in the core muscles, and he started to develop products and workout systems that targeted those muscles.

His first invention was called the Core Board. Similar to a wobble board, the Core Board presented an unsteady perch on which to stand, requiring a person to co-ordinate and use many different muscles to maintain balance.

The second was a system of rubber Thera-Bands, later named Core X. With this apparatus, Mr. McKechnie would use one band to tie patients’ right wrists to their left knees and another band to tie their left wrists to their right legs, with the two bands connected by a central ball. Once the injured athletes were all bound up, he’d get them to perform basic sporting moves, such as strides and pivots.

Working with Mr. McKechnie, Shaq would at one moment be tied up like a marionette, and then he’d perch his huge frame on the makeshift wobble board. It felt, Mr. O’Neal remembers, a bit “silly.” But he was determined to skirt surgery and kept at it. It worked – he was back on the court several weeks later.

Over the next two years, Shaq spent his summers in Vancouver, training with Mr. McKechnie. By the autumn of 1999, he arrived for work with the Lakers more formidable than ever. He played almost every game and scored a career-best, league-leading 30 points a game, topped by a scorching night when he slammed in 61 points on his 28th birthday.

He won his only regular-season MVP trophy and seized the biggest prize of all, leading the Lakers to the title – the first of three consecutive championships.

“He’s the resurrector,” Mr. O’Neal said of Mr. McKechnie in 2003. “He brought me back. I was dead, and he brought me back.”

With the Shaq seal of approval, other celebrity clients followed. The Lakers hired Mr. McKechnie full-time, and people around the physiotherapist began to envision the mass-market potential for his products and methods.

It's quiet across the locked-out NBA these days, but there's even less chatter in the offices of the Lakers, who parted ways with many familiar faces in cost-cutting moves at the start of the month.

Now there is already one tangible loss from the Lakers' decisions not to renew nearly 20 expiring contracts for trainers, scouts and staffers and save money for services not needed during what figures to be a lengthy lockout.

Alex McKechnie, who rebuilt Shaquille O'Neal's body once upon a time and in this era did specialized pregame training for most Lakers including Pau Gasol, has decided to take his innovation in analyzing core strength to the Toronto Raptors.

McKechnie will certainly be missed. He has privately trained many of the sports world's biggest names in his free time, but his seasonal job was working with Kobe Bryant (and even Phil Jackson, doing what he could with the old coach's brittle body) and just about every Laker over the past decade.

But with his career in the balance, Hargreaves acted on the recommendation of a close friend, Steve Nash, the Phoenix Suns basketball player, to enlist the help of McKechnie, who has spent the past seven years as the LA Lakers athletic performance coordinator after saving O'Neal's career following an abdominal injury.

McKechnie said: "I treat broken down athletes who are almost like reclamation projects, but Owen gave this his maximum effort and threw everything into it unconditionally.

"He had what you would call a deep default posture, so we had to bring his body to a neutral posture through core movement.

"Without core strength, your body is basically trying to shoot a cannon from a canoe. In simple terms, muscles do not work in isolation – they work collectively to produce power, strength and co-ordination. In someone like Owen, when you have issues with your knees, the first step is usually to strengthen the quadriceps and the first reaction is to go to the weights.

"It's a fact that that process builds power and strength, but functional strength is the key and the leg muscles come from the pelvis.

"The quads, hamstrings, abductors and gluteal muscles all come from your pelvis, so all the muscles going into your thigh have a pelvic control. If you don't have a control of your pelvis, then first and foremost you are not going to have control of your knee.

"Owen had considerable loss of quads and control of his patella tendon, which led to the dysfunctional movement and issues with his knees."

McKechnie's methods involve intense concentration and commitment, but he admits that Hargreaves proved to be the perfect patient.

He said: "To get to where you want to be, you have to re-educate movement and correct the posture. That change takes four to six weeks. Continuously, for the first 3-4 weeks, Owen would work in front of a mirror and never come away from it.

"It starts from building one position, from a simple squat, to a drop-step and sidestep.

"The mirror gives visual stimulus all the time so he knows exactly where the core balance is. We would spend a minimum of two hours day doing this, but mostly three hours, even on Saturdays and Sundays."

On his return to United last month, Ferguson admitted his surprise at the progress made by Hargreaves and the optimism surrounding his recovery is genuinely high, only weeks after his prospects appeared bleak.

McKechnie added: "Is Owen OK to play? From a recovery perspective, yes he is, but from a football perspective, that's purely something for his coaches. But he has put himself in the position to play.

"He was with me for seven weeks and the last two weeks were basically on-field training, repeating the patterns of movement that we had worked on.

"We didn't touch a ball. I have no interest in the ball, I'm not a coach, but all credit must go to Owen. All I can do is hit the ball into Owen's court – he is the one who has to hit it back."

Interest in McKechnie's methods within the Premier League has been minimal, yet he admits he is keen to share his experience with English clubs. "Owen's quote to me was simple. He said, 'This should be in football. I can't believe it's not in football.' My programme is now used by 23 of 30 teams in the NBA, plus numerous teams in the NFL and NHL.

"I did a workshop last summer with Manchester City and spent time with West Ham about eight years ago. I would love to do a workshop with the Premier League."

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SHAQUILLE O’NEAL
An all-time great of NBA, ‘Shaq’s’ LA Lakers career was in the balance with an abdominal injury in 1998 before McKechnie spent two months resolving the problem. At 38, O’Neal is now oldest player in NBA with Boston Celtics.

STEVE NASH
Phoenix Suns point guard Nash recommended McKechnie to Owen Hargreaves, saying: Alex is not only a physiotherapist but a world-class movement specialist.”

JIMMY CONNORS
Tennis legend Connors regularly used McKechnie’s services during his career in the 1970s and 1980s.

Thanks. Nothing new there, but I don't believe I ever read that article.

On a side note, JJ could be a thoughtful player. I wish he had his head screwed on straight when he was here. He could have been a good bench player if he did. He had his worst year ever last year, percentage wise. Like a lot of players, he didn't realize he had a good thing going when he did.

Makes me wonder, if TL gutted the organization from top to bottom, i cant see him not telling Masai to gut the team as well. I cant see him expecting his new crew to work with the same players who underperformed last year, or is he?

Makes me wonder, if TL gutted the organization from top to bottom, i cant see him not telling Masai to gut the team as well. I cant see him expecting his new crew to work with the same players who underperformed last year, or is he?

My personal theory there is that keeping Casey was a pretty good indicator that major roster moves wont happen this year. BC has severely tied the hands of Masai on that front. This will be another growth and evaluation year as a lot of people have things to prove ala the new article on the rr home page. I'm not saying anything major wont happen, just that Masai would have to win that fight with both hands tied behind his back